RYERSON WALK
COURTESY OF GANS STUDIO
Curator Bill Menking; Roll Out Houses by Professor Deborah Gans’s firm, featured in the Biennale.
PRATT PROFESSOR CURATOR AT 2008 VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE William Menking, M.S. ’88, who has taught architecture, urbanism, and city planning at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture since 1992, was chosen as commissioner and cocurator of “Into the Open: Positioning Practice,” an exhibition selected by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to represent the United States at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, from September 14 through November 23 in Venice, Italy. Menking cocurated the exhibition with Aaron Levy, executive director and senior curator at the Slought Foundation, and Andrew Sturm, director of architecture for the PARC Foundation. The show includes installations, digital images, video projections, drawings, and artifacts that explore challenges to traditional methods of architecture, such as shifting sociocultural demographics, changing geopolitical boundaries, uneven economic development, and the explosion of migration and urbanization. The exhibition was conceived with the assistance of architects Teddy Cruz and Pratt professor Deborah Gans, whose Gans Studio will be one of 15 featured in the exhibition. Professor Menking is the founder and editor in chief of The Architect’s Newspaper and has organized, curated, and created catalogs for exhibitions on architecture and urbanism for venues in the U.S. and Europe, including “Forever Modern: Fifty Years of Record Houses” and “Shrinking Cities” at Pratt Manhattan Gallery. Professor Gans has taught architecture at Pratt since 1987. She is an editor of Bridging the Gap: Rethinking the Relation of Architecture and Engineering, which was honored by the AIA International Book Awards, and the recently released The Organic Approach.
© PMc
Pratt, home of the first fashion design program in the United States, celebrated its 109th Annual Fashion Show on May 7 with a dazzling runway show of the work of 23 graduating fashion majors. During the event, Pratt named Carmen Marc Valvo its 2008 Fashion Icon. Actress and opera singer Emmy Rossum conferred the award. For the fourth year, The Importer Support Program of the Cotton Board and Cotton Incorporated were the sponsors of the Pratt Fashion Show. Cotton Incorporated, funded by U.S. growers of upland cotton and importers of cotton and cotton textile products, is the research and marketing company representing upland cotton. The program is designed and operated to improve the demand for and profitability of cotton. Over each of those four years, Cotton Incorporated has held an evening wear competition to show the material’s versatility. This year, First Prize went to Jessie Leigh Voris for a cream-colored, A-line muslin gown with a handcrafted overlay of triangles. The Fashion show also introduced a new honor this year: the Merrick and Lillian Pratt Best of Show Award of $5,000, generously funded by the couple to support the careers of promising fashion designers graduating from Pratt. Yamel Mendoza earned the accolade for her collection of elegant, jewel-toned evening gowns inspired by peacocks. After the show, President Schutte hosted an exclusive after party at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan in honor of Valvo. Guests at the festivities included such luminaries as fashion designer Nicole Miller and painter Kehinde Wiley.
COURTESY OF BILL MENKING
Excitement Marks 2008 Pratt Fashion Show and After Party
Left to right, honoree Carmen Marc Valvo with Emmy Rossum, Fashion Chair Rosie DePasquale, and President Schutte
Corrections: In Prattfolio’s spring 2008 issue, we reported that Angela Davis had served as the inaugural Scholar in Residence for the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences in April. She is one of several the school has hosted in the past. The Third Place winner in the George Kovacs Lighting Competition is Robert Volek, not Volex, as printed in the last issue. 45